Striking doctors’ meeting with ministers deadlocked

The resident doctors are pushing for
improved allocation for their training.
Talks between the striking National
Association of Resident Doctors, and
Labour and Health ministers on Thursday,
ended in a deadlock, PREMIUM TIMES
learnt.
Ministers of labour and health,
Chukwuemeka Wogu and Onyebuchi
Chukwu respectively, representatives of the
resident doctors, including its president,
Jubril Abdullahi, Head Of Service, Bukar
Goni Aji; and other officials met from 4p.m.
Thurday to 6a.m. Friday.
Yet, they were unable to resolve the
contentious issues.
The doctors began an indefinite strike on
Tuesday, complaining about the poor
funding of residency training of its
members by the federal government.
“All we want is for the government to take
training of resident doctors as a serious
issue, which will eventually be of great
benefit to the country,” Mr. Abdullahi said.
A residency training is a structured six to
eight-year programme which some doctors
undergo in order to become specialists in
various fields of medicine.
Only N20 million was allocated for training
of resident doctors in the 2013 budget as
against N150 million allocated last year,
leaving many doctors out of training.
As a result, several institutions missed out
on slots for training their doctors.
University College Hospital , Ibadan, for
instance, got nothing.
“We have asked for a supplementary budget
for the training, but the Federal
Government has failed to honour our
request,” Ismail Lawal, the immediate past
president of the doctors’ union said.
Sources said Thursday night’s meeting was
tense resulting in a walk out by
representatives of the doctors.
President of the union, Mr. Abdullahi
however told PREMIUM TIMES that no one
walked out although he admitted there was
immense tension.
“The problem is that there was so much
tension after the meeting. We couldn’t start
exchanging words with technical assistants
to the minister of health. I don’t want to
mention names at this point but they were
not helping matters at all. I am talking
about the minister’s assistants,” he said.
Part of the union’s grouse is the non-
payment of house officers’ allowances as a
result of the Integrated Personnel Payroll
Information System (IPPIS). But the
ministry said that was illegal since house
officers were not government employees.
“A house officer is a medical attache
observing a year of training in any teaching
hospital, thus can’t be said to be a
government employee,” spokesperson to
the minister of heatlh, Dan Nwomeh said.
Mr. Nwomeh said the minister of health, Mr
Chukwu, had September this year advised
that each teaching hospital should forward
to the accountant general of the federation
how many house officers were being
absorbed into their system while their
allowances would be sent to the various
hospitals in bulk.
This, Mr. Nwomeh said, was accepted by all
parties wit the accountant general
confirming their money had since been
ready for collection.
The doctors also complained about alleged
victimization of their members by the
Medical Director of the Federal Medical
Centre Owerri whom they asked to be
removed.
Mr. Nwomeh said the doctors gave only a
day’s ultimatum over this matter. “The MD
of that hospital must be given fair hearing;
it is not normal to drastically ask for the
removal of anyone in service without giving
room for proper investigation,” he said.
Another demand of the doctors, was for
the Enugu state government to implement
the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure
(CONMESS) for resident doctors in Enugu
State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu.
President of the umbrella union for
doctors, the Nigerian Medical Association,
Osahon Enabulele, refused to comment on
the strike when contacted by PREMIUM

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